Either Alex Smith wakes up from his slumber and becomes the QB that he has shown flashes of... dating back to last season, or he doesn't, and becomes the "former" starting quarterback for this team. Defense ain't gonna lose this one for us fellas... Winning or losing will be squarely on the shoulders of Alex Smith. To a lesser extent as well, special teams needs to pull their heads out and ball. They've been getting their a**es handed to them weekly. This ain't the Tony Montana squad of last year! All that beig said however, I still think this all goes back to the QB.

Make no bones about it... this is gonna be a tough, hostile environment. Arizona has had this game circled on their calendars in big ol' red marker pen since the schedule came out. They are gonna be fired up for this game on both sides of the ball. Fitzgerald is no joke. Their defense is underrated. If Roman thinks our offense can come into Phoenix and sleepwalk our way through their defense, he will be sorely mistaken! Nickle and diming ain't gonna cut it here. This offense needs to be opened wide up. 'Zona will kill us if we try to small ball them.

Now, lest you think I am some sort of harbinger of doom, and not a true fan... I actually DO think we will win this game. We have had 10 days to prepare and history has shown that Harbaugh and Co, usually don;t screw that up. Also, we come out of this game 6-2 or 5-3. There is a HUGE difference in those two win loss records. I actually think that there is a good chance that ALL the teams in the NFC West end the season with winning records... I see Seattle and St Louis ending the season at 9-7 and missing the playoffs, so this being a divisional matchup is a MUST WIN game for us. That fact ain't gonna be lost on Coach Harbaugh.

Brandon Jacobs make an appearance, and runs so angry over the Cardinals that they keep the heavy O package in and just run it up the gut of Calais Cambell and the DL pushing them back 4 yards at a time.

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